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Show LET'S KEEP COOL. j Day by day, as this is written, th 1 Sino-Japanese situation seems to be getting more serious. Warships of the United States, Great Britain, France and Italy are at Shanghai to protect the nationals of these nations in case the fighting spreads to the international quarters. It is the duty of every nation, of course, to protect the lives of its citizens when there I is trouble. It is equally clear just now j that this is as far as the United: States will go or should go in the Far Eastern situation. While it is true that public sympathy sym-pathy generally in the United States is pro-Chinese it is not to be forgotten for-gotten that after all the Chinese are not blameless. For years the country has been torn by conflicting armies, headed by factionalists who, in some cases, are little better than brigand chiefs. China has been unable to form a strong centralized government for, itself, and is now paying the consequences conse-quences of disorganization and lack of national defense. If the Chinese cannot organize and protect them- j selves it is too much to ask that other nations shall continually do this for! them every time a foreign foe arises. The Japanese claim that they are in .China to protect the lives and pro- j perty of Japanese citizens who have been attacked by Chinese.' While the average American may be inclined to j believe that the Japanese have gone farther than necessary to do this, still there is not much we can do ! about it. Our principle duty is to see : that American lives are safe. Outside Out-side of that we have no military duty in the matter and Americans should keep cool in this time of crisis. |